Injury woes continue for Italy

Italy is already dealing with the injuries to defender Gianluca Zambrotta (out for their first match and maybe more) and central defender Alessandro Nesta (might be out for one or more matches), but their day got a little worse today when midfielder Gennaro Gattuso (pictured) was ruled out of their first two matches (Ghana and USA).

Gattuso picked up an injury during the May 30th friendly with Switzerland. He exacerbated it in training and it now appears to be "a deep lesion of the left calf muscle," said team doctor Enrico Castellacci.

Zambrotta and Nesta were blows to the team, but Gattuso is a big part of the Italian engine in midfield. Without him controlling the tempo of the game and being the playmaker, Italy is nowhere near as tough.

The team's coach Marcello Lippi has ruled out bringing in a player to replace Gattuso as he is too important to the team.

With Francesco Totti still struggling to get back into full fitness, this team is in a bad place right now. Still, Totti was able to make a bit of a joke over the whole situation when he was asked about his thoughts on all the injuries, "It's certainly not the team we would have liked to start with. The way things look, I could be the fittest."